“HER name was Connie Converse, plain-Jane, wearing glasses, and not at all looking like she would fit in with our crowd. When she started to sing, she transformed us!”

That’s how Gene Deitch remembers the moment he first heard this unassuming young woman play her haunting music on a guitar at a party in 1950s New York.

In the years that followed, Converse sank into depression — smoking and drinking heavily and borrowing money for projects that failed. Then in 1974, she disappeared.

But she is far from forgotten. Her music has gone viral on Spotify, she’s the subject of a documentary and a play, and she’s become the “indie hipster of the moment”, according to priceonomics.com. It’s all thanks to a chance tape-recording Deitch made, and the power of Converse’s timeless sound.

Before she vanished, Converse sent a letter to her friends and family: “Let me go. Let me be if I can. Let me not be if I can’t. [ ...] Human society fascinates me & awes me & fills me with grief & joy; I just can’t find my place to plug into it.”

But the world couldn’t let Connie go. In 2004, Deitch was invited to play some of his favourite records on WNYC show Spinning on Air and slipped in one of her tracks, One by One.

Dan Dzula was driving in New Jersey with his brother when he heard the song on the radio. ”It bowled me over,” he told news.com.au. “It hit us on a very emotional level. I was so engrossed, I wanted to dive in.” He went home and recorded the track from the show’s podcast, sharing it with friends over the following few years. Occasionally, he Googled Converse’s name to see when an album might be coming out.

Eventually Dzula, by then an advertising jingle writer, got tired of waiting and contacted Deitch.

When he learnt the remarkable story, Dzula enlisted his business partner David Herman and started an independent record label, Squirrel Thing Recordings, named for a line from Converse song Talkin’ Like You (Two Tall Mountains).

The two men contacted Phil Converse, Connie’s younger brother, and discovered the family had more recordings that the singer made at home and sent them. Her relatives believed Converse took her own life, but others aren’t so sure. “She didn’t write suicide notes,” Dzula said. “She expressed a desire to try again somewhere else.”

If she is alive today, she would be 90 years old.

Dzula and Herman chose 15 of the 35 tracks, selected the best versions and improved the audio. In 2009, they released Converse’s debut album, How Sad, How Lovely, 35 years after she disappeared. It was a hit, with the label selling thousands of records and Converse fans emerging around the world.

Cover versions of the songs sprung up on YouTube, a tribute concert was held and a documentary film of Converse’s life was crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Some believe the Coen borthers’ movie Inside Llewyn Davis was inspired by her story. Music journalist Robert Forster wrote in The Monthly that it was “a drama so sprawling, with a denouement so unexpected, that Hollywood can only gaze in wonder ... Witherspoon or Kate Winslet are probably practising the acoustic guitar right now.”

Inside Llewyn Davis trailer2:32

The Coen Brothers' film, 'Inside Llewyn Davis' stars Oscar Isaac as a young folk singer in 1960s New York.

August 26th 2013

3 years ago

/video/video.news.com.au/News/

Phil Converse died in 2014, having lived to see Connie’s rise to fame. And her star rises further every day.

Musician Howard Fishman has written a play about her, and produced an album of Connie Converse’s Piano Songs — tracks she never recorded but wrote down as sheet music. Herman and Dzula are putting together another album of her unheard songs, and new Converse fans are born all the time.

“Connie, one thing she used to say about her songs was that they were beloved by ‘dozens of people all over the world’,” Dzula said as he laughed. “So the moment we exceeded a dozen we were satisfied.

“People respond to it: her story, her songs, the lyrics. The idea of an overlooked artist is cliche but here’s a very perfect example. She’s talented in so many ways.

“It’s kind of a sad story but she’s still very much the hero of that. She’s a captivating character.”

If you or someone you know needs help, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.